War Years

Even though there was a war on our daily lives were uneventful. There was no television (it wasn't invented yet for household use) so we kept abreast of the news via radio and newspapers. When you attended the movies, newsreels were featured on all the current events. Progress of the war were headlines everywhere as most families had loved ones in the fray....sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, husbands and boyfriends. Few were exempt of worry. During the newsreels, if some particularly successful attack against the Germans or the Japanese was shown the whole theater would cheer, whistle and applaud.

The radio also served as our entertainment. Many an evening was spent gathered around the radio to listen to the comedians, variety shows, theater and kids shows. A lot of the appliances you enjoy in your households today were not yet available or even thought of....maybe in Buck Rogers comic books....or some other futuristic works of fiction. We weren't exactly taking our laundry down to the river and pounding our clothes on the rocks or making our own soap, none the less, keeping house in those days involved a little more manual labor than today's tasks.

On wash day, Mom would wheel the washing machine our of the utility room into the kitchen. The machine had to be by the sink as it was filled manually with the hose. The machine had an agitator that was electrically driven to clean the clothes. It also had wringers that you fed the clothes through to squeeze out the excess water. If you were careless feeding clothes through the wringer you could get your arm caught up. The clothes were rinsed in the kitchen sink and run through the wringers again. Wet clothes went into a basket and taken out to the clothes line in the yard where they were hung to dry. Prior to this, dirty clothes were gathered and sorted on the kitchen floor..whites were washed first, then towels, a load of colored stuff and last was the grungy work clothes. It really amounted to a full day task...by the time you did the wash, hung it out, drained and put the machine away, brought in the dried clothes from the line and put them away. Wash and wear was not in the cards yet so there was a lot of ironing to be done after the wash.

Vacuum cleaners were available but we certainly did not have the luxury of owning one. Cleaning the house was strictly dust rag, broom and mop.